12 Days of Christmas: Day 12, Do It All Again Next Year!

Welcome! If you want to get your household ready for everyday emergencies and worst case scenarios, my family survival book is all you need! Click here to buy. Thanks for visiting!

One of the reasons why I love Christmas is that my home is at its loveliest for one whole month. Over a big window facing the back yard is strung a lush garland of pine entwined with tiny white lights. My two trees (Mom’s, done in all red and gold and the “family” tree with our personalized, handmade and Disney ornaments) fill a living room and family room, respectively, and take my breath away.

All this beauty makes me wish the holidays could last forever, but all too soon, it will be time to take down the lights, trees, decorations, and ornaments and store them until next year. My memory is so faulty, though, how will I remember where everything went? After all, even the hall bathroom received its’ fair share of Christmas decor and my daughter and I put a lot of thought into all the little holiday touches we add here and there around the house. Christmas organization isn’t something I can ignore!

At my age, my memory isn’t as good as my forgettery, so to help it along, I take a series of photos to remind myself where everything goes. A quick shot of the hall bathroom, one of the dining room table, another of the kitchen island, the outside lights, and on and on will be a lasting, photographic record so that next year I won’t be standing there with decorations in hand saying, “Now where does this thing go?” This is an easy task to delegate to your kids, by the way, and since you’ll probably have the camera out anway, Christmas Day is a good day to get ‘er done.

Once your photography session is finished, you can store everything on your computer in a file, “Christmas decor 2016” or, better yet, store them on a CD in case your computer crashes. I prefer having the photos printed and placed in a small photo album, which gets stored in one of the holiday bins. I’ve noticed those little photo albums become great memories, as we’ve moved from house to house over the years.

Take this idea one step farther and create a Christmas 2017 photo album that includes all your photos from the season. You’ll have pages and pages of fun memories interspersed with practical reminders of what you want to decorate, and how, next Christmas.

Other ways of getting ready for next Christmas 11 months early are:

Clearly label all Christmas bins, boxes, and bags with their contents. I recommend one that prints labels in large fonts, like this one.

Color coding is your friend. Just this morning, my husband was rummaging around our bins looking for outside lights, which are all packed in bright blue plastic bins. Color coordinating at its finest!

Ward off damage by heat, humidity, and pests by storing your decorations accordingly. Our bins of Christmas lights did just fine in our Phoenix attic but our collection of Disney ball ornaments were damaged by heat over the years.

If your ornament collection includes keepsakes, you really want to protect those. Store them in their original packaging or wrap them in tissue and store in a partitioned box like this one.

One of the secrets to a relaxing holiday season is getting up all your decorations, including the tree, early in the month. Knowing ahead of time where everything goes makes that job a piece of (fruit)cake! With the photos you took this year, your kids can decorate the house next year, and you can relax! What a concept, and you deserve it!

I'm the original Survival Mom, and have been helping moms worry less and enjoy their homes and families more for 5 years. Come join me on my journey to becoming more prepared to handle everyday emergencies and worst case scenarios.

I want to receive updates and
EMP survival reports!

Comments

For many people Christmas is anti-climatic because they spend a month in "preparation" mode, not really preparing for Christmas but doing lots of stuff that is supposedly important, but in reality drives you crazy, and then spending one, or at max two, days hastily celebrating, in a rush to take it all down again. This is NUTZ!

You don't celebrate a child's birth until he is born, and then you celebrate not just for a day but for weeks after his birth, until (in my cultural milleau) the baby is baptized–in Jesus' life this celebration culminated with his presentation and circumcision. And so similarly, we ought not rush Christmas. The days before Christmas are a time for us to get ready for the new born Lord just like a parent would get ready for a new born, with work (cleaning your house perhaps) and preparation and most importantly prayer–the celebration begins the day the Child arrives. I always advise folks to wait till the whole family is off from work and school–and then and only then–spend a day or two before Christmas decorating your home as a family just as you would before you welcomed home a family member from abroad or the hospital. The energy of decorating should feed your celebration on Christmas day and for all the twelve days of Christmas until January 6th when traditionally Christians celebrate the visit of the Magi. Christmas is not so much about everything being perfect but about peace and love in an imperfect world, don't let a month of business STEAL away weeks of peace and joy and love.